Musical Plan: Biking America's Edge

For starters, Bill South sees it as the world's largest "summer camp experience." "No. 1, it'll be a blast," he says. "No. 2, we'll have peers influencing peers."

The basic plan is this: Get the 16 most talented musicians ansd singers from the 8th through 11th grades in South Florida, put them on bicycles to ride the entire perimeter of the United States, perform 155 live concerts, collect guns along the way to melt down into a monument at a later date, and call it the "High On Life Bike The Border Concert Tour."

The journey is scheduled for April through November 1995, and South figures he's got the marketing skills to make it happen. After all, he says, he once helped to bring 100,000 people together for the World's Largrest Single Serving of Mashed Potatoes and Gravy.

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The 50-year-old business and marketing executive first got the idea for this expedition a copule of years ago.

"I was watching one of those real crime show and there was this young girl on there who the police were trying to console and she kept repeating over and over agin, 'I can't take it back, I can't take it back,' but they couldn't get her to say what she couldn't take back."

Finally she blurted it out. "The bullet," South said.

"I think it was a teacher she shot."

The line, "I can't take it back" started ringing in his head, almost like a song, an anthem. "I thought we've go to turn this around, send a message that only the weak carry guns. But adults can't do it. They have to hear it from their peers. Thast's why I want to assemble the brightest, most talented youth we have and put them on the road."

The road is a familiar place to South. A fomrer marathon runner, he'd always wanted to run around America. "But it would take a year and I knew nobody would come with me. It would be very solitary."

This, the Bike the Border Concert Tour, will be a celebration. The chosen children will create their own High on Life music and take their message through 2,200 villages, towns and cities.

"It has to be the kids tour," South says. "Their discoveries, their music, their concerts. We'll put the power behind it but his has to be their tour."

The power begins with South and his wife, Laura, who is public relations director for Moroso Speedway in West Palm Beach. Together, from their Greenacres condo, they are working on getting sponsorship. With so many dimensions - bikes, kids, music, guns - it's not an easy project to explain. "But once you get a major sponsor the others will come aboard," he says.

Once the sponsors come around the real power kicks in, South says. His wish list includes both professional musicians and interns (working on their master's) from local universities helping the teens create original music, PR pros who will work the trail up to two weeks ahead of them to build momentum with the media at each stop, a musical director and at least two security guards.

"I have to make the parents realize I'm going to take care of these kids as if they were my own," he says.

This project will not get off the ground overnight. After the kids are selected, it will take several months to coordinate everything and create the music - time enough, South says, for parents to get to know him personally. Also, aside from having several chaperones, he'd like to recruit some of the parents to come along.

"We might even enlist motorcycle guards so it's more of a procession. We know we'll come back with some scrapes and bruises but that's all we want out of it."

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South sees all of this happening but not even one of what he calls his "future role models" has been signed up yet. He considers that the easy part. "You just know there's a great 13-year-old drummer out there and a phenomenal 15-year-old guitar whiz. All we have to do is bring them together."

Auditions for the 16 High on Life band members and four alternates will begin next month. A musical board will be assembled to make the choices. "We won't just be looking for talent though," South says. "These have to be real upbeat kids."

But it's not necessary to be in marathon shape to take on this trek. They checked with a physical therapist as far as endurance and even extended the time so there would be more rest days. "Almost any teen-ager can do 65 miles a day," he says. "This is not a race."

It's not like they're going to be going up hill with cellos, tents and guns strapped to their backs. They plan to have two mobile homes along as part of the caravan.

They will camp, mostly at state parks, along the way. "Keep in mind we'll be on the perimeter so they'll be a lot of opportunity for beach camping, which is great."

In contrast, through Michigan and Maine they'll be on the edge of wilderness. "We'll see moose," he says.

An avid biker, South has already explored two-thirds of the route himself. He also has been using topographical maps and computer mapping systems to perfect the journey. Double checking sidepaths and ferry crossings, his goal is to use all the outermost paved roads of the United States.